


drowning in wrong

by Aoida_blue



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU, Under the Red Hood
Genre: AU from Under the Red Hood, Gen, M/M, aka the one where Bruce is 'dead' when Jason comes back
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-05
Updated: 2014-01-05
Packaged: 2018-01-07 14:00:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1120685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aoida_blue/pseuds/Aoida_blue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bruce was dead, dead and gone and was a cold grave in the ground. </p><p>But Batman still flew. </p><p>Jason's plans continued.</p>
            </blockquote>





	drowning in wrong

**Author's Note:**

> Finally cross-posting to Ao3
> 
> Note: This is based mostly off an AU of Under The Red Hood, where Bruce died before Jason came back, and Dick already has taken up the mantle.

Bruce was dead, Jason was alive, and Dick was batman.

 It was four steps forward and a tumble back.

Logic fraying at the edges when Jason tried to just grasp it and- and-

Jason screamed himself hoarse when he heard.

Bruce was dead.

But Batman still  _flew_.

And Jason-

 

-=-

 

Dick was lighter on his feet. Graceful.

Landed like a gymnast too, on the balls of his feet, sinking down into flat feet.

He relied too much on his heavy cape to make his entrance, whooshing behind him.  He swung in where Bruce would have rushed. He flew where Bruce  _soared_.  He was a light bird flittering in predator clothing.

It was wrong.

_He_ was wrong.

The darkness that Dick tried to cloak himself in slid off his back like oil, the light glancing off his suit. No matter how hard Dick tried to master it, no matter how hard he tried (and god Jason could see he  _tried_ ). Maybe the ordinary crooks couldn’t tell, maybe their eyes went to the Bat signal and didn’t see the  _impostor_ , but Jason-

A splinter of humour caught like a laugh behind his teeth and Jason could barely keep it in.

Jason saw Dick for  _Dick_. 

The tremble had gone down his body, sweeping down like the rain and he was almost shaking when Dick hit the rooftop on his too light feet. 

“Red Hood.” Dick said, and the voice was gravelly, yeah, but it wasn’t  _deep_ enough, didn’t have the rumbling tone that threatened  _violence_. 

Wrong, wrong,  _wrong_. 

“Nightwing.” Jason replied with a dip of his head, smirking his mirth.

A muscle jumped in Dick’s jaw. Like maybe not many had noticed before, like not many knew his moves, and saw what a piss poor imitation of Bruce he really was. Dick didn’t move an inch, kept his more readable reactions under wraps, and Jason wanted to know what he  _thought_ , wanted to prod at that shell, wanted to maybe throw a fist but-

Not yet. 

“You’ve been causing quite a stir.” Dick said, and it was avoidance and a demand, sharp like surprise.

Only one word and Jason had already put him on edge.

“Oh ‘wing, I’m just starting.” Jason had to quip, grin, felt it loosen dangerously and this could spin out of control in a single breath.

He  _wanted_  it to.

Dick shifted, movements short and Jason saw, gearing up for a fight. Jason knew his tells, learnt them stumbling in his footsteps, and he could see it happening. The twitch of his fingers, the slight tilt of his right shoulder forward. The way his left knee bent.

 “I think you were just finishing.” Dick shot back, tone slipping briefly into Nightwing before deepening out into Batman.                                                                                                

Jason wasn’t ready though.

 

Not yet.

 

That’s the dessert after and they haven’t finished entrée yet.

 

Jason  _tutted_ , pressed his weight back on his heels, and flicked his wrist, a detonator slipping into his hand from his sleeve. Dick’s attention snapped it, rapid fast, and his knee bent a little more.

 

No more time to waste then.

 

Jason clicked the button and behind him, three explosions ripped through the night. Giant leaping flames rose from three buildings behind him, filling up the dull Gotham air in a crackling roar.

 

One empty druggies warehouse in one. Two not so empty side by side it. Jason grinned hard as Dick’s lenses widened.

 

Dick sprinted past him, a brush of the cloak sweeping next to Jason’s legs and Jason pulled his own grapple out, walking causally the other way, watching Dick leap off the roof.

 

The suit is too big around the chest for him, but Dick still swooped off into the night like it’s a second skin, barely stumbling around the cape in the direction of those burning drug dealers.

 

-=-

 

4th of March 2010

 

Bruce Wayne died on an ordinary day.

 

Jason carved the date into his old table, printed it out and painted the walls with it.

 

4th of March 2010.

 

Jason had still been dead.

 

Even when he’d come back, Bruce had been  _dead_.

 

He’d been planning for a  _year,_ consumed with that burning desire, thoughts narrowed and training hard, for his revenge to a  _dead_  man.  No one had told him. No one had told him and Jason- Jason-

 

Jason slashed the date. Slashed the walls, slashed the table, fills the room with scars until his knife is blunt.

 

Outside to match the inside and all that.

 

-=-

 

The plan carried on, wheels turning. Black Mask played his part. Drug dealers brought him money and drug dealers died. Downtown Gotham whispered his name with a reverence usually left for Batman and the whole thing was dynamite, and Jason was waving a match.

 

He loaded his bazooka that night with a special sort of joy.

 

Glanced at his monitors before he leaves, saw Dick’s ill-fitting custom summersaulting four blocks away.

 

The plan’s cogs kept on turning.

 

-=-

 

Black Mask was desperate, falling into Jason’s plans as if they were quicksand and he’d barely noticed. Jason clenched his hands together and tried to pretend he didn’t felt as empty as he did.

 

Black Mask was thinking about the Joker and the words whispered around the apartment. Black Mask was planning a break out. Black Mask and Joker, two names tied together from every Mask hotspot Jason bugged.

 

The Joker was coming out to play.

 

And Batman was still dead.

 

And Dick was still dancing around in his ill-fitting skin.  

 

Jason clenched his hands harder, his knuckles gleaming a bone white under the reflected blue of the monitors.

 

-=-

 

The thing was. The thing _was_.

 

Jason’s plans had been different.

 

Intricate. Perfect. Plans.

 

He had been going to have Bruce guessing. Have him clambering over thoughts and ghosts, had him watching over his shoulder on a dark night with Jason’s name on his lips.

 

He wanted to have Bruce suspect it was him. He wanted Bruce by the end to _know_  it was.

 

Dick was no Bruce.

 

Dick didn’t know who he was when he dropped in beside him, a clutch of assassins out to get his blood. Didn’t know who he was and afterwards turned on Jason, chased after him, chased him downtown across rooftops, under neon lights and across the chasms of Jason’s childhood.

 

Jason left him in Crime Alley, a smoke bomb obscuring his retreat.

 

The bloody sword was still gone when Jason went back to look.

 

Dick would know who he was.

 

It just wasn’t the plan. It hadn’t ever been the plan for Dick.

 

Plans adapted.

 

-=-

 

The Joker breathed, wet sounding, sucking breaths. Jason stared down at him. Dropped the crowbar beside him and slammed the door shut.

 

Dick was looking for the Joker. Dick knew Jason was alive. Dick knew Jason had the Joker.

 

But it hadn’t been Dick’s responsibility to kill him.

 

He was guilty sure, all the blood of innocents spared by one bullet Dick could have loaded, but he wasn’t the  _reason_  for this. He would been collateral in the other plan, a gleaming thread of the past Jason could have pushed to the side one way or another to get to the bigger problem.

 

But this was the new plan.

 

“Hood.” Dick’s paper-thin Batman impersonation said over the radio on the channel Jason had announced his prisoner,  “We can talk. We can settle this.”

 

There was noting to settle. Not with Dick.

 

With  _him_.

 

Yes.

 

But not with Dick.

 

Jason had never been a fan of sons suffering for Father’s sins. Even fake sons.

 

Jason loaded his gun.

 

_But_.

 

But. And Jason paused. But Dick wanted to be  _him_.

 

-=-

 

Dick wanted to be Batman. He wanted that ill fitting costume, the heavy cape, the constricting tunnel vision.

 

Jason wanted Batman unleashed. Wanted innocents saved. Wanted the wrong punished.

 

Dick wanted to be Batman.

 

So. 

 

-=-

 

“Jason.” Dick breathed the word, slowly, face giving away nothing without his cowl, but his tone screaming everything, “Jason, I can help you. I know what Ra’s did.”

 

It was a façade of a calm negotiation. Dick’s voice was back to Nightwing, a far shot off Batman.

 

A stress reaction.

 

Maybe.

 

Or maybe Dick thought Jason would react better to Nightwing than he would to Batman.  Like that would make a difference. Like that could ever make a difference.

 

Jason laughed, felt it chip and shatter.

 

“Oh you’d like to think that would you?” Because that would be the easy answer wouldn’t it, the ‘perfect’ answer, would make Jason’s and Dick’s life so much better, “That I’m just a rabid counterfeit of the kid too small to properly fit your boots?”

 

Dick stepped forward. Reached out.

 

“If I’m wrong, tell me. Talk to me.” Dick said, and its patience, patience where Bruce would have had none, words where Bruce would have had silence, “Jason.”

 

He’s not Batman. He never should have been Batman.

 

Jason threw his hood over.

 

“You don’t fit that cape Dickie.”

 

It took two flashes and Dick dropped the helmet, jumping over to the side, and Jason took his chance. He dived into the smoke, got Dick, and landed a punch, right across Dick’s pretty face as his helmet blows up, landed another punch, and another and Dick stumbled back under the onslaught.

 

It felt good, a visceral joy as Dick’s snapped to the side in the punches, it felt so good and Jason was almost too distracted to see Dick move.

 

Dick was sudden and swift, one duck under a punch, and he rose up, fist snapping Jason’s head sideways, stunning him, and chasing Jason down as he faltered back. But he held back. He  _held_  back.

 

“It doesn’t have to be like this.” Dick was determined, still holding back, a dog with a bone.

 

He ducked again when Jason fluked a punch, enough for Jason to ram in a knee in his stomach. Dick grabbed his knee, twisting his leg into a lock.

 

Jason went with it, using Dick’s momentum to pivot, to turn 360 and draw his knife.

 

“You want to be Batman.” Jason hissed, “learn from his mistakes.”

 

Under the flash of the bare blade, Dick dropped back immediately; stepping back as Jason swiped after him, grabbing a batarang to stop a particular vicious gut stab. Jason angles his knife down and instead slices off the belt, a heavy cluck on the ground.

 

“No more goodies.” Jason quipped, and leapt back, regained his space and angled his retreat to his hidden surprise.

 

The heat of flames from his jacket caught Jason surprised, and Dick had to have slipped something in when they were so close before and-

 

Jason scrambled to get his jacket off and Dick’s smile flashed hard.

 

“No more, Jason.”

 

It didn’t sound like Dick was talking about their toys.

 

He needed to retreat. Now.

 

Jason leapt, bounded off the rooftop, straight into the bathroom window. Heard Dick land right behind him but Dick was fast, faster than Jason remembered and then there was the wall, the floor, the sink and Jason’s arms were ringing and he kicked off Dick as hard as he could, and lead straight into the surprise.

 

His gun was waiting for him and finally Dick stopped.

 

Eyes wide, he stilled.

 

Dick was wrong.

 

There was still more.

 

There was always more.

 

Jason sucked in a breath.

 

It never ended.

 

-=-

 

The Joker quivered, laughing, motions of laughter, of glee and Jason wanted to pull the trigger, wanted to end it , wanted to end all of it, right then. End it.

 

The gun sat awkwardly in Dick’s hands.

 

He’d been a cop once. Had shot perfectly straight. Jason had seen those videos in his research, read the reports that Officer Grayson had been the finest shot they’d had in the entire PD but had never once fired it during patrol.

 

But Dick still looked like this was the first time.

 

“Him or me.” Jason hissed, “Either you rid the world of him, of his crimes like what the real Bat should have done, or you let him live on, and the only way is to shoot me.”

 

Jason’s finger was heavy on the trigger, imagined pulling, imagined dying.

 

Dick’s mouth settled in a stubborn line.

 

“I won’t shoot you.” Dick said, and it was firm.

 

Foolish.

 

“Then he dies.” Jason said and it was so simple, it was all so simple.

 

Dick’s took an aborted step forward and Jason raised his elbow warningly. Dick’s face was pale.

 

“Don’t shoot.” Dick was trying again, “Don’t shoot. Let him rot in a jail cell.”

 

“Yes.” Jason bit because Dick was failing, failing, “Because that worked so well.”

 

The Joker was laughing louder, shaking against the nossle of Jason’s gun.

 

“You have your choice.” Jason said, biting, “I’ll pull the trigger in 3-“

 

The Joker trembled harder, laughter seeping out of his lips like a leaking wound.

 

“2-“

 

“ _Jason_ ” Dick’s word was a whip.

 

“1.”

 

Dick took a step forward, toward  _him_ , and Jason’s finger twitched against the trigger.

 

-=-

 

In another life, Dick had been the goal to beat.

 

His strides the ones Jason lunged to fit into. His suit the one Jason trained hard into the night to fit into. His jokes the ones Jason had been funnier than, be quicker than.

 

Dick had been the goal to beat.

 

Jason had fallen below target in a fireball.

 

So he’d set his goals higher.

 

-=-

 

Blood.

 

Blood sprayed across Jason’s armour, blood splashed against Dick’s pale face. Red. Red and vivid. Red mingling grey splattering on the wall.

 

Dick jerked to a standstill and his skin was pallid, ice white around that black mask.

 

There was a red vivid stripe over the Bat insignia.

 

Jason’s hands slipped on the Joker’s collar, blood sluicing his hands, and the body fell. He hit the floorboard with a thump that drained into the thin walls, that swallowed up the rasp of Jason’s breaths that sound suddenly so loud in his ears. Dick flinched a little more.

 

It was quiet. So quiet without the Joker’s laugh, without the sick wheezes, the uncontrolled glee…

 

There had been a bomb in the chimney. Finished and primed.  

 

Jason didn’t need it.

 

It was over.

 

The thought echoed, rattling in his head, until Jason found himself mouthing it, _it was over, it was all ove_ r. The Joker was dead. Years after killing him, years after killing his mother, after all those murders, after all those sacrifices, after death, after death, after-

 

His murderer was dead.

 

The mass murderer was dead.

 

The room trembled, warping white so quickly Jason didn’t even know when exactly it had started, the blood was on his hands and even that tinged white.

 

“Jason.” The words slipped out of Dick’s mouth, and its so, so loud, a shotgun of desperation, “ _No_.”

 

It was too late, too late. The Joker was dead.

 

Jason hit the ground on his knees, pain a distant thing racheting up his legs and Dick was white, white and blurred filling up his vision.

 

The Joker was dead.

 

 

-=-

 

 

Bruce was dead. The Joker was dead.

 

But Jason was alive. Dick was batman.

 

It’s wrong, still wrong, always so wrong. But there was splinter of right in it too.

 

The Joker was dead. Ashes in a burned down building. An ‘mob-related’ fire the media said.

 

Bruce was still dead.

 

His gravestone was a grey cross. The inscribed  _Bruce Wayne_  rubbed by countless desperate fingers. Maybe mostly by Dick’s hands.

 

Bruce was dead. 

 

Jason didn’t touch his tombstone.

 

The silence was too heavy, heavy like Bruce’s disappointed eyes and Jason couldn’t reach out, couldn’t touch it.

 

Jason’s eyes slipped shut, the grave gone from sight. Dick’s hand curled tight on his shoulder.

 

Bruce was dead. But.

 

But.

 

The Batman was alive.

 

Dick pulled his shoulder, and Jason moved, followed.

 

 


End file.
